Given the events of the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about both Paris and Beirut. It’s been an emotionally exhausting week, to say nothing of the actual tragic events in both cities and elsewhere.… Read More A bit of Paris and a lot of Beirut
To be perfectly honest I remember almost nothing about my long-ago visit to Avignon, a pretty but sleepy medieval town in the south of France. I never imagined I would return, let alone to attend the city’s major performing arts festival, Festival d’Avignon, and its fringe, ‘Le OFF‘. Although the festival is now in its… Read More Festival d’Avignon et le OFF, the biggest theatre in the world (‘Le plus grand théâtre du monde’)
On Saturday night I went to my first real Belgian house party — where the lingua franca was French. Spending time with the other half of the country made me appreciate that, indeed, the cultural divide between Flanders and Wallonia is a real phenomenon. I mean, I live in Leuven, a mere stone’s throw from… Read More Finding common ground between the Flemish and the French in Belgium
Belgium, where I’m living now, was actually one of the first countries I ever visited; I spent almost a week here on my first ever trip to Europe at the age of 20. I went because of a childhood friendship with my Belgian penpal, who lived in a town outside of Antwerp called Oostmalle. Towards the… Read More More questions than answers about Belgium
Leaving Marrakech, I knew I was on a plane bound for France because every second person on the plane had a duty free bag with a carton of Gauloises or Camels. There were also plenty of Moroccan families returning home to Lyon, which gave me some new, though vague thoughts about French multiculturalism, especially following… Read More A wander through the ancient city of Lyon
If there’s one thing that French films have taught me over the years, it’s that the French seem to have a hard time believing in romance. Certainly not the Hollywood kind anyway. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that one of the most recent romantic films set in Paris isn’t actually a French one. I first saw… Read More In the footsteps of the most romantic film in Paris
For the last two days I’ve been recovering from a nasty cold by watching one BBC drama after another, immersing myself in worlds that feel so different to my own: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and finally, Upstairs Downstairs. The latter was a revelation; I thought it would be about class and an insight into… Read More Past and present
The Travels of Elephant Woman 